


Springtime in December

by Liminal_Space_LLC



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Character Study, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Meet-Cute, Sickfic, with a smudge of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 04:39:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19244008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liminal_Space_LLC/pseuds/Liminal_Space_LLC
Summary: Will Poindexter runs into his neighbor Derek sniffling and swathed in coats on the staircase and insists he cannot go into the cold Boston winter. Instead, he invites Derek to have some soup in his apartment.





	Springtime in December

Will was going for his Wednesday morning cup of artisanal coffee. The coffee was his weekly gift to himself, on his telecommuting days. He justified to himself that, since he would be spending that money on the subway any other day, it was basically a sunk cost.

He liked the walk to the coffee shop on Wednesdays. He liked that he didn’t have to rush and worry about the dependability of the Boston transit system. He knew it would take him half an hour at most to walk to the coffee shop, order his coffee, and return home.

He’d done it so many times, he knew that he would start working at 9:30 sharp. That reliable rhythm made him feel steady and settled. He felt he knew where he was going and what he was doing.

The walk today was perfect. Snow had fallen overnight, and the shops on the main road had begun to decorate for Christmas. It reminded him of the winter school holidays in his youth, when he and his brothers would wake up early to slide down the tall hills in the neighboring dairy farm before the farmer would catch them.

He retrieved his coffee, a latte poured into his reusable cup, but did not sip it. He liked to wait until he got to his worktable to start drinking coffee, so that his walk back home would not yet feel like work.

When he opened the door to his apartment complex, he heard an odd sort of thumping shuffle from above. He tried to think who it might be. Everyone else who lived in this building left pretty early, except for the woman on the first floor who worked nights. She would have no reason to be on the stairs though.

He found the source of the sound between the second and third floors. Derek, the neighbor who lived across the hall from him, was walking shakily down the stairs, dressed as though there was a blizzard on.

“Are you alright?”

The neighbor shook his head dismissively. “Jus’ a cold.” Whether it was the layers of the scarves or congestion, Will couldn’t tell, but the man was barely intelligible.

“You shouldn’t go outside, if you’ve got a cold.”

The pile of scarves rose and fell in what looked like a shrug. “Ran out of food.”

“You’re going to go food shopping? Like this?!” Will asked.

He knew immediately he’d gone overboard. His neighbor was giving him the kind of look that suggested they might not greet each other in the halls anymore.

“I’m sorry. Of course you need food.” They stared at each other awkwardly. Will knew he ought to let it go. But he couldn’t abide letting a sick person go out into the cold. “Do you want some soup?”

“What?”

“I’ve got soup left over from dinner last night. Do you want some?”

The neighbor looked at him skeptically. “What kind?”

“Minestrone.”

He stared at Will. His eyes were a piercing green. “‘kay.”

It was odd, bringing a stranger into his apartment. He hardly ever had guests. Even in college, none of his roommates had ever had any illusions about his social skills. He held the door for his neighbor, then stood purposeless as the man unraveled his winter gear.

“Where should I put my stuff?”

Will had no idea. He’d never thought about where someone might put their copious amounts of outerwear in his studio apartment. He gestured vaguely toward a chair then escaped into the kitchen before his neighbor could ask questions.

Will busied himself with warming up the soup on the stove. He could have microwaved it, but he preferred the even heat of the stovetop, and he liked the small ritual of watching the bubbles appear between the vegetables then stirring them away. It was like bringing calm back to a tempestuous sea.

Behind him came a polite but distinctly phlegmy cough. The neighbor, Derek, was poised uncertainly over his kitchen chair. “May I?”

Will nodded and returned to the soup. The bubbles had returned, more tenacious than before.

“You have a lovely apartment, William. That’s your name, right? William?”

“Will.”

“Well, Will, I am very jealous of your view. We only see the corner of the park from our place. It must be nice to see all the people in the summer. The kids are so cute.”

Will always felt awkward, seeing all the people living their private lives. He tried not to see them, so he spent a lot of the summer with his blinds closed. It seemed rude to say, though. “The kids are cute, yeah.”

The soup was boiling. Will ladled it into a bowl and cut some crusty bread from the bakery downstairs. He turned to find his neighbor watching him avidly, as though Will was some kind of specimen. He set down the soup as quickly as he could and turned back toward the counter. “Do you want coffee?”

“No, thanks. Coffee gives me jitters. I’d love some tea if you have any, though.”

As he boiled water and searched for his box of Lipton, Will tried not to look at the neighbor, though he could almost feel the bright green eyes staring at him. He could imagine what a young hipster would think of him.

Will knew he was not cool. He didn’t wear over-striped nineties sweaters or tight jeans. He only owned one scarf. Most of the time, he didn’t mind being uncool. He lived a sensible life with a good job, and that was all a white guy from the backwoods of Maine could really ask for.

When Will was twenty-two, he’d graduated from the University of Maine with a degree in Computer Science. His parents had expected him to move to Portland, which was an easy hour-and-a-half drive from his hometown.

Instead, he’d packed all his worldly possessions into his uncle’s old truck and drove to Boston with a half-cocked plan to be somebody else. But after he moved into his new apartment and started his new job, he’d found he was still himself. Just an awkward guy from Maine, too gay to be a real hick, too hick to be a proper gay.

He turned to set the tea down by the neighbor’s bowl, and realized, “You haven’t touched your soup.”

The man bit his lips and looked down shyly. “I don’t have a spoon.”

“Oh.”

Will fetched him a spoon. Then he realized his conundrum. He could not leave a neighbor to eat alone. That was unconscionably rude. But he had just eaten breakfast, so he could not himself eat.

He muddled through by starting on his artisanal coffee on the opposite side of the dining table.

“This is really good soup. Did you make it yourself? Also, do you, um, happen to have any Kleenex?”

Will tried to answer in the breaks between Derek blowing his nose. “Yes. It’s my mom’s recipe.”

“You and your mom are both great cooks. I’m Derek by the way.”

“I’m Will.”

“Yeah, I know.” Derek smiled mischievously, and Will had the overwhelming sense of catching a waft of watery spring breeze. Derek was spring incarnate, with his crown of flower-like curls and moss-green eyes and his rose-tinted lips. Even with a cold he had the dancing warmth of a lovely May morning.

Will nodded and stared at the pale wood of the table. He didn’t know what force of heaven was amusing itself by having him make a fool of himself in front of a beautiful man, but he hoped they were enjoying the spectacle.

“Thanks so much for the tea and soup. I feel a lot better.”

Derek still looked a little gray, but Will walked him to the door without protest. He was relieved to stop embarrassing himself and finally get some work done. It was past ten already.

Then Derek stopped short at the door, patting at his various pockets with increasing concern. “Oh, fuck.”

“Are you okay?”

“I, um, think I locked myself out?” He was chewing his lip as he continued searching the pockets of his many coats.

“Can you call your girlfriend?”

The man stared at him for a moment, until he made a little donkey bray of a laugh. “Oh! You mean Lardo! She’s not my girlfriend. Just my roommate. And she works across town, I couldn’t make her come all the way back now.”

Will had thought that the woman who lived across the way was named Larissa, but maybe Margot was her middle name. “If you want, you can hang out here, until she gets back.”

“She won’t get back for a while. I can’t eat all your food.”

“We can order delivery.”

Derek’s eyes suddenly went wide. “I could have ordered delivery! I am such an idiot. I’ll pay for your lunch, to make up for the soup, okay?”

He seemed so genuinely ashamed, Will laughed. “Don’t worry about it! I make soup all the time. Come on, you should sit down and rest. I have blankets. And Netflix.”

Derek gave his springtime smile again. “That’s everything I need in life. Blankets and Netflix.”

 

 

Will finally settled into his work to the gentle ambience of _The Great British Baking Show_ playing on his personal laptop. With his artisanal coffee already finished, while he was brewing a second cup for Derek to drink while he rested, he’d poured a cup of tea for himself.

Tea in hand, he began examining the bizarre, ancient code he’d found yesterday.

He liked taking messy code and unknotting it into logical strings of thought. Then he would reformat it, laying it out in neat, orderly chunks of code like the steps of a recipe. Finally he would write careful notes detailing what each part contributed to the whole, why certain methods were used over others, what edits he made to the original. It was careful, craftsmanlike work that rewarded patience. He hardly noticed the time pass until his little lunch alarm went off.

His neighbor was sound asleep on the couch. He’d gotten tangled in the blankets so only his legs were covered. Will tried to rearrange the blankets without waking him, but just when he’d finished extracting a blanket he heard a small, “Hello?”

Derek was staring at him groggily. There was a section of his hair that was charmingly concave, as though it had taken on the form of the pillow.

“It’s just me. Your neighbor, Will.”

Derek nodded floppily. “Will.”

“What do you get from the pizza shop across the street?”

Derek screwed up his face as though this was a weighty question requiring intense consideration. After a long pause, he replied, “Margherita.”

 

 

Will liked the pizza shop across the street—Sal’s Pizza. It had been here since before this was a hip neighborhood, and it looked it. The hard plastic seats were faded green, and the cash register looked as though they’d had it since before he was born.

The pizza was pretty good, though. He ordered a large Margherita to go and sat to wait by the wall of Red Sox paraphernalia. He settled into his usual ritual of reading all the plaques. It was almost like a poem in his head, all the strange-but-familiar baseball names.

Baseball was something he knew. When he came to Boston, sports had made the city familiar. He had rooted for Boston teams his whole life, and he could talk about them forever. It made chatting with his coworkers easy.

Instead of talking about his weekend, which usually consisted of very little, he could talk about the standings. The game. The stats. It was easier than anything else.

 

 

When Will got back, Derek was sitting up, reading Will’s book of Robert Frost poems. It sent a not-unpleasant shiver up his spine to find a beautiful man curled up on his couch. “Hey, pizza delivery.”

Derek looked up with another dazzling smile. “Ah, pizza boy! Bring me the fruits of your labor and I will pay you in poetry, like did once the mellifluous Orpheus to the Queen of the underworld and her love.”

Will laughed, “What?” He might have understood half of those words.

“I’ll trade you this Robert Frost collection for some pizza.”

“Enh. I think I already own that one.” Derek gave him a gratifying laugh. “It sounds like you’re feeling better?”

“Still pretty stuffed up, but my head’s clearer, thanks to your very cozy couch.”

“Good.”

They ate the pizza straight out of the box on Will’s couch. Derek put _Bake Off_ back on, and they watched in comfortable silence.

“Can you do that?” asked Derek.

“Do what?”

“Make things. Like that.”

“I can bake some stuff. I used to make all the stuff for the UMaine hockey team’s bake sale. But only really basic things. Cupcakes and brownies and stuff.”

Derek’s eyes lit up. “You were on the UMaine team? I was on the Samwell team!”

“With Jack Zimmermann?”

“Chyeah! He was my captain, freshman year.”

The pizza disappeared as they talked about their hockey teams and remembered their games against each other, and it was as though Will finally found his feet on the ice. Once they got going, talking to Derek was so easy. He was funny and smart, and he had a way of holding his head as though he really found Will’s thoughts interesting. His laugh was warm and friendly as a beam of morning sunshine, never mocking.

Will’s phone buzzed, and he checked his email only to find they had been talking for nearly an hour and a half, long over his planned lunch break.

He apologized, “I should get back to work.”

“That’s chill. I should probably go back to sleep.”

Will was hit by a sudden burst of shyness. He’d been sitting here, talking to this stranger for over an hour. He wondered if Derek had simply been too polite to end the conversation. Derek was only here because he was locked out. He likely felt obligated to be friendly. As he opened his work laptop, Will shook his head at his own foolishness.

“Hey, Will?”

Will turned, full of dread, but Derek was smiling. Despite himself, Will felt something warm bloom inside him. That springtime smile. “What’s up?”

“Well, you just seemed to be confused about me and Lardo earlier. I wanted to clear it up. Like I said, she and I aren’t dating. I’m actually, like, not dating anyone. I’m single.”

“Oh.” Will slowly parsed those words, wondering if Derek was saying anything close to what Will thought he was saying.

Before Will could respond properly, Derek said a jaunty, “Good night!” and disappeared behind the couch.

Will started working absently, clicking through documents without really reading them. Outside his window the sky was a dream in shades of pink. He didn’t usually notice the colors of the sunset, but today as he watched the clouds darken slowly to purple he felt something grow soft and buoyant inside him. A slow elation tingled at his fingertips.

He wondered if Derek was still awake. Time had gone soft around him. The air seemed more solid than usual.

Derek was pressed into the couch, staring at his phone. He looked up at Will with wide eyes.

“Weren’t you supposed to be sleeping?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

Then they were looking at each other.

Will didn’t know what to say. It was like this sudden swell of feeling had filled his chest and his brain and left no space for anything else.

Derek laughed softly. “One of us has to talk.”

Will swallowed. This had been so easy before. He did not understand this blankness.

Derek reached up and brushed the curve of Will’s ear with his fingertips. The touch was so suddenly tender, Will had to close his eyes. Derek said, “I didn’t know a person could have freckles on their ears. They are so darling, hiding out of sight like that. Just like you.”

“What do you mean?” Will whispered.

Derek’s fingers traced delicately down his jaw, and the skin under his touch buzzed with electric warmth. “When I saw you in the hallway, with the blankest face I’ve ever seen, I thought you were another obnoxious white tech bro. Lardo laughed at me when I told her I thought you were cute. She said I was tragic. To be fair, I’ve had some pretty terrible crushes in the past. But you are nothing I expected. You pretend like you’re so gruff and unpleasant, but one look behind the curtain and anyone can see you’re sweet as a jelly donut.”

Will felt full of light, sweet wine. “You like jelly donuts?”

Derek laughed. “I love jelly donuts.”

“I can make you jelly donuts.”

“I’d like that. Now, please, kiss me, I’m dying here. But not on my face because, in another sense, I’m dying here.”

Will felt something hot and tight tug at the pit of his stomach, and his eyes wandered without permission down Derek’s five o’clock shadow, to the wide stretch of his shoulders, visible even through his sweater.

But a thought cut through his lust: _I want to see him again_.

He took Derek’s hand from his ear and pressed a kiss to his smooth brown knuckles. “Can we take a rain check on that until I take you out to dinner?”

“You want to wine and dine me?”

“If that’s okay with you.”

Derek’s eyes were shining. “Sit next to me.”

On the couch, Derek curled his body into Will’s, only the sounds of their breaths between them.

Derek spoke in small, warm puffs against Will’s neck, “When I tell people I like them, usually the first thing they do is tear my clothes off. They tell me I’m so hot, they can’t help it. And I like sex and stuff. It’s nice. But sometimes it feels like the only thing people see is my body, and when I ask them if they want more, they look at me funny. Like it’s such a strange idea, for someone to want me as a person.”

There was something thin and raw in Derek’s voice that made Will’s veins run with hot fury. He squeezed Derek’s hand. “Fuck them. I’ve only known you for a day, and you’re already one the most interesting people I’ve ever known.”

Derek stared at him with big green eyes.

“Though,” Will continued, “I’m from Maine, which is boring as fuck. So, like, that’s maybe less of a compliment than it sounds like.”

Derek gave him that sweet smile. “I don’t know. Maine people seem pretty interesting to me.”

“How many Mainers do you know?”

“Well, just you.”

Will felt as sweet and delicate as a sugar rose.

There was a brisk knock at the door. Will did not think he would answer that door for anyone, not with Derek in his arms.

“Nursey!” called a woman’s voice, “Are you alive in there?”

“Lardo!” Derek called back, “Yeah, I’m good! I’ll be out in a bit!”

Derek looked at him furtively. “I don’t really want to go.” He squeezed Will’s hand.

Will desperately wanted him to stay. He thought he would willingly stay just like this forever, in this dreamlike moment, with this man pressed into his chest. But the slight stuffy edge in Derek’s voice made him think better of it. “You should go rest.”

Derek pouted, and Will wondered if he had the strength to tell him to leave again. He was not tested, though. Derek asked him, “When will I see you again?”

A little thrill went up Will’s spine. “Can I take you to dinner on Friday?”

“I would like that.”

At the door, Derek gave him one last glowing, blue sky smile. “Thanks for taking me in. Today was a delightful surprise.”

“Yeah.” Will’s brain seemed to have run off, leaving his mouth defenseless.

“Bye bye, William. I’ll see you on Friday.”

“See you.”

After the door closed, Will closed his eyes. He imagined as hard as he could that last look Derek gave him, with his green eyes sparkling mischievously. It made him feel almost lightheaded.

Eventually he returned to his work laptop. He had four hours of his telecommute time to make up. But occasionally he would glance over at the empty cup of tea and butterflies would flutter through his stomach. Eyes like new leaves had peered at him sweetly over that mug, and something sure and steady in his soul said they would again.

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to figure out these boys :)
> 
> ****
> 
> If you liked this, I'm also Liminal-Space-LLC on [Tumblr](https://liminal-space-llc.tumblr.com) and [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/Liminal-Space-LLC). Thank you for reading!


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